


and you will find me (time after time)

by buckyjerkbarnes



Category: The Haunting of Bly Manor (TV), The Haunting of Hill House (TV 2018)
Genre: 2.2 k of Dani and Jamie being tactile af, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Compliant up until the last twenty minutes of ep. 9, Dani Clayton Lives, Dani and Jamie invented love... change my mind, F/F, Fix-It, HAROLD THEY'RE LESBIANS, Happy Ending, Jamie saves Dani, Mild Angst, RIP Viola please go to anger management, brief mention of drowning, little hurt whole lotta comfort, plant/flower imagery, so sweet you'll get cavities
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-28
Updated: 2020-10-28
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:27:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27238042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buckyjerkbarnes/pseuds/buckyjerkbarnes
Summary: Jamie, for as long as she’d known her, could always tell when Dani walked into a room. Call it a magnet seeking its complimentary pole, call it primordial instinct— Jamie would know. She always knew.So when the door to her hotel room was pushed open, artificial light from the hall spilling across her face, she couldn’t withhold a smile.[Or, a last minute arrival turns up for Flora's wedding. A Bly Manor fix-it.]
Relationships: Dani Clayton/Jamie
Comments: 12
Kudos: 330





	and you will find me (time after time)

**Author's Note:**

> ya'll... I deadass binge-watched this show twice in as many days. the first time, it was after having accidentally seen a few screenshots from The Scene in episode 9 where Dani's in the lake and I had those images filed away, knowing they were coming, and when Jamie and Dani lived their life so, so happily... I shit you not, I was a sobbing mess 3/4 of the episode. When I saw Dani's hand on Jamie's shoulder in the final shot, I lost my MIND in the best way. God. Owen and Hannah... G O D. this show is immaculate. I could honestly wax poetic about how Rebecca and Peter are a direct contrast to Jamie and Dani (esp. in terms of Jamie's "love vs. possession" line), how this show was a masterclass in creating both characters you'd die for after 5 minutes in their company and characters you'd not hesitate to drop kick into the Bly Lake if given the chance. 
> 
> And yes - I did name this fic after Belinda Carlisle's "Time After Time" but while writing this? I listened to the Iron & Wine cover which, as Flora would say, is perfectly splendid. Enjoy!

Jamie, for as long as she’d known her, could always tell when Dani walked into a room. Call it a magnet seeking its complimentary pole, call it primordial instinct— Jamie would know. She always knew.

So when the door to her hotel room was pushed open, artificial light from the hall spilling across her face, she couldn’t withhold a smile.

“Jamie, why aren’t you in bed?” Dani wondered, hurrying in with her suitcase rolling anxiously at her side. The door was shut and locked with a bump of Dani’s hip and a blind turn of her wrist. “You’ll get a crick in your neck.”

Though she’d hardly settled, Dani was right; Jamie rolled her shoulders to shake off a wave of impending stiffness. 

“Was waiting for you,” Jamie murmured. “I haven’t slept alone in twenty years, Poppins. I didn’t intend to start tonight.”

Her sentiment had Dani’s bag discarded with little fanfare, leaving Dani to slip into Jamie’s orbit. She slipped to her feet, then, arms open to circle Dani’s waist and letting herself be circled in return. Jamie smoothed her hands down Dani’s arms, the linking of their fingers muscle memory after twenty years, knee-jerk. Not for the first time, Jamie was sure this is what it was like to live as a sunflower, to willfully, and with great bliss, tip into the sun’s palm.

“How’re the ducklings?”

Dani beamed.

“Oh, they’re wonderful,” she sighed, the sweet lines at the corners of her eyes creasing. “Oh, Jamie, they’re so wonderful. Howard’s mom says he’s been making a lot of progress with his stutter, that the exercises I found are really helping. And— and Paige is, well. She’s learning more words, but the more she learns, the more she’s frustrated when her brain mixes up what she’s reading. She’s better about her anger, though, but she and Marley got into it again. That’s why I was late— I wanted to meet with Paige’s grandma before I was gone for the weekend. I know what it means to Flora.”

In their little corner in Vermont, Jamie had _The_ _Leafling_ and Dany had her small gaggle of pupils who, over the last year, had covered their fridge with an absurd number of drawings. Half of them didn’t look like anything at all, but each time Dani hung one up, she’d put her hands on her hips, step back, and beam.

“Flora loves you,” Jamie pointed out. “And it’s not like you won’t make the main event.” 

Dani still frowned, though. 

“What did I miss at the rehearsal dinner?”

Jamie didn’t flush. Not really. Her throat burned, though, as if reminding her how dry her mouth had become by the end of her tale earlier in the night. Like she’d gone three rounds with a bag of sand and lost.

“Well after Owen made an awful toast, we, ah. We swapped ghost stories,” Jamie said, a little too fast. Dani’s eyes narrowed. “I think Owen wants to have breakfast first thing. Went on and on about how we don’t write, we don’t call…”

“Jamie,” Dani groaned, and she’d listened to every word Jamie had said, yes, but Dani wasn’t the type to let the things that fell between words go unaddressed. “What did you do?” 

She allowed a smile, crooked and small. It was her Dani smile. 

“Who me?” 

“ _Jamie._ ” 

Her hands slid over the slope of Dani’s back, skittering up to cup Dani by the jut of her elbows. She tucked the edge of her thumbs into the bends of Dani’s arms. 

“Call it an extra wedding gift,” Jamie said, tipping in to press her forehead to Dani’s. Her voice went low, accent growing increasingly pronounced. “Call it a warning. A piece of advice, perhaps.” 

“Jamie,” Dani said softly. She always did like her name in Dani’s mouth, but after dragging every scrap of horror they’d faced at Bly to the surface, she felt a bit like tissue paper fed into water— indescribably fragile, on the verge of complete and utter disintegration.

“I only fudged a few details,” Jamie mumbled. She thumbed at the corner of Dani’s mouth, willing Dani’s blinding smile to break over her. “Wasn’t lying about your beautiful, perfect face, though.” 

Dani’s eyes tightened, her forehead crumpling and folding the skin between her brows into a little niche. Never the type to hide each and every emotion that welled up inside of her. Jamie would never ask her to. 

It was easy to latch onto the quiet puff of Dani’s breaths, but the effort to make like a redwood and straighten, planting roots in the carpet underfoot and refusing to budge until Jamie could shake her shortness of breath, was less so. Like a drain had been removed, keeping memory— the good and the bad alike— trapped within Jamie’s chest cavity, she spiraled down: 

_The piece of paper ripped from a legal pad, folded haphazardly even as the strokes of pen were heavy, lingering—_

She wants to hurt you, but I won’t let her take you from me. I won’t. I can’t, Jamie.

_Moving mechanically to the car— Dani must’ve taken a cab— for the airport over an hour away. Sitting with nothing more than her wallet, house keys, and passport on her lap the entire flight. She hadn’t thought to bring anything else._

_The chatty driver, who, after Jamie chucked a fifty pound note his way, was a lot less chatty and a lot more willing to take the winding back roads at breakneck speed._

_The harsh ripples disturbing the surface of the lake, flinging herself into the water. Jamie’s refusal to cry shifting into unwilling tears spilling down her cheeks, blurring her sight. Her arms slicing across the distance even as her clothes went heavy and water-logged. The water stilling, and Jamie shouting, and—_

_None of it mattered, not when she dove down into the biting cold, not when she kicked her way to Dani. It couldn’t have been much longer than a minute, getting Dani to the surface. Another two to pull her to the shore. Mouth on Dani’s in the most primal way, hands moving in erratic compressions to will the water from Dani’s lungs. Words with bite, with desperation, with something not quite grief that only Jamie could recall. A heart that, if her ministrations were unsuccessful— if— if Dani—_

_A heave of Dani’s chest, a burst of water streaming from her mouth. Eyes that flew open as Dani bolted upright._

_Eyes that, when they darted from the middle distance to land on Jamie’s face, were clear and beautiful and blue._

“Hey,” Dani said softly. Her fingers skimmed over Jamie’s cheek, over the rabbit-quick pulse in her throat. “Jamie, wherever you went just now, come back, okay? Come back to me.”

“Always,” Jamie whispered. She bumped her nose against Dani’s temple and was thankful beyond words when Dani allowed her a moment to collect herself. Neither of them said a word when Jamie sniffled. “Like you ever have to ask.”

The same sand that threatened to strangle her into silence downstairs returned tenfold. Spilling out of her with an abrupt rawness she’d only allow in the presence of her wife. 

“I am lucky,” Jamie murmured. “God, Dani, everyday I wake up and you’re here, I feel like I could knock down mountains. Touch the stars, even. All the things that far better poets have said before. 

“Maybe it was being in a room with them all,” she allowed, as it had been the first time since leaving Bly that Jamie had seen Owen, Henry, Miles and Flora all in one space. “Maybe it was Owen’s silly speech—,” and his deceptively light voice saying _to truly love another person is to accept the work of loving them is worth the pain of losing them_ had loitered low in Jamie’s ears, deafening her to much of the small-talk around the table until Henry touched her wrist and brought her back to the present. “—but I’ve let myself get tangled up in what-ifs, sweetheart. And sometimes my mind can be cruel, you know that.” 

Jamie’s nightmare had remained solitary and it remained unchanged, and after the better part of ten years, she almost appreciated the consistency of her torment. Every time, she would arrive at the edge of the lake, but the sun sat at a different point in the sky. Her legs were useless, moving her forward in that molasses slow way of dreams until she suddenly hovered over the lake; Jamie could see right to the bottom where, among the algae and sediment and waste, was Dani. 

Dani, hair like liquid gold floating around her face. 

Dani, clad in black. 

Dani, most beloved. 

Dani, gone. 

“I tell myself at least once a week we ought to play the lottery,” Jamie managed, and the well behind her eyes gave way, spilling silently. “Remind me to grab a scratch off from the corner store when we’re back home.” 

Dani, who never failed to stir at Jamie’s thrashing. 

Dani, who would cup the side of Jamie’s face and call Jamie back from the hellscape of her mind’s creation. 

Dani, who was solid and present. A little weepy, sure, but here, and hers, and the rarest of people, now and always. There was only one thing Jamie could say: 

“Our problem still stands, Poppins. All this love I have for you comes flooding out of me and I don’t quite know what to do with myself half the time. But it’s the truest thing I’ve ever known, and the safest. The purest, the best. It’s ours, and I wouldn’t trade it for the world.” 

“I love you, too,” Dani whispered, and she was tipping in, and like a vaulted arch, Jamie was meeting her weight in the middle, a mirror, sealed with a point of heat. Their lips lingered, parted. Slipped back together in a way Jamie would never tire of. Dani tipped away to smear a kiss over Jamie’s cheek, up to her brow, her temple, the end of Jamie’s nose. She always found her way back to Jamie’s mouth, and Jamie’s hands rose to cup the hinge of Dani’s jaw to keep her close even when they succumbed to the need for breath. 

“Christ, look at me,” Jamie choked out, laughing damply. “I didn’t even let you take off your shoes.” 

“You know I don’t mind,” came the quiet reply. 

Dani, using Jamie for balance, stepped out of her modest heels and shed her jacket. She didn’t bother to hang it up in the narrow coat closet across from the bathroom, deigning to drape the grey wool over the chair Jamie had occupied. 

“I’ve rattled on long enough,” Jamie said, laughing again when Dani used the sleeve of her blouse to swipe away the liquid salt on Jamie’s skin. “Tell me about your flight, your ducklings, the stock market, even. Anything that comes to mind. I just wanna hear your voice.” 

Dani, curling in to sweep a kiss to the corner of Jamie’s lips, complied. 

Within fifteen minutes, they’d migrated to the bed, tucked close under the sheets with Dani’s cool toes pressed to Jamie’s calf. They didn’t bother setting an alarm as, before she’d come upstairs, Dani had requested an early wake up call from reception. She’d let Jamie braid her hair, the strands still mostly golden even as Jamie, in contrast, had gone entirely silver. The pair of them settled on their sides, tipped close like a couple of parenthesis; foreheads touching, legs overlapping to create a closed circuit, a continuous circle of heat. 

“You should try to sleep,” Dani mumbled, already dozing off. “Miles will tease if you have dark circles in the wedding photos.” 

Jamie snorted. 

“Nothing a little concealer won’t fix.” 

It was hard to tell what sort of night this would be. Whether they would sleep, undisturbed, until dawn arrived or if a whimper would cut through Jamie’s veil of sleep, and she’d stir to find Dani trying to catch her breath, watching Jamie with wide, glassy eyes that lagged somewhere between now and the summer of 1987. If Jamie, groggy and slow, would smooth a hand over Dani’s side and ask, _how about a cup of coffee, eh?_ before spending the witching hour sharing the same side of a booth in a diner twenty minutes south.

And the coffee, miraculously, would be worse than any brew Dani had ever made. That was almost an understanding.

But Dani was in Jamie’s arms. She was here, smelling of recycled air from her flight, sure, but under that was the unmistakable trace of mint and peony. Jamie’s hand covered Dani’s, thumb gliding over the skin-warmed metal of Dani’s ring.

There’d been a time in their lives when they took things day by day, and Jamie was alright with that. She’d invited it, as every minute with Dani surpassed any gold bar or precious gem. Even she could admit that after their last trip to Bly, time was no longer the end of a noose waiting for an executioner— rather, it was gentle, like a bee bumbling from flower to flower, spreading pollen with the precise kind of aimlessness that yielded an unlimited opportunity for growth. It offered a comfort, a promise: 

Unlike the moonflower, she and Dani could bloom well beyond the span of a single night. 

(And bloom, they did.) 

**Author's Note:**

> If you'd asked me how 2020 would go, I'd never have said: "Global pandemic, fighting to preserve the US Postal service, time is an illusion, and also Chadwick Boseman is going to pass away." Like... I know COVID doesn't have an expiration date the moment the calendar hits 2021, but I hope next year is kinder. If you're reading this, I hope you're doing well and staying safe. If you're American and of age, please vote and if you're doing absentee, you've gone past the time to mail them in so be sure to drop your ballots off at your local registrar's office to be sure they count on Election Day. Wear your mask, wash your hands, and try not to go out and interact with people if you don't absolutely have to. Above all, be kind to yourself. I've seen so many tweets and posts that are like "ah yes this is the prime time to be creative! to do the things you never had time to do before!" My mental health has absolutely TANKED since March and I know I'll likely relapse again once winter arrives in earnest, so please, please move at your own pace. Treat yourself as you'd treat your best friend- with understanding, with grace, and with tenderness. Big love, ya'll. Hopefully it won't be another ten months until I catch you all again. 
> 
> Until then, x.
> 
> You can find me on twitter @ buckjerkbarnes losing my marbles over whatever fandom of the moment has consumed my interest :)


End file.
